A Parent's Guide to Public Schools 2020

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Download the Guide
English (PDF)
Spanish (PDF)

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Voice of San Diego is pleased to publish the 2020 edition of A Parent’s Guide to Public Schools. The guide was created to provide a tool for families to use when making decisions about a child’s education.

Not only does it provide an overview of every public school’s performance in easy-to-read charts, the guide also answers questions about local public school options, including information on school choice, charter schools and transitional kindergarten.

Voice of San Diego has distributed 50,000 copies of the guide throughout the county. Check your local library to obtain a copy. Copies are also available through our community partners. Click here to find a location near you.
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Download Your Copy

[button color=”” url=”https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Parents-Guide-to-Public-Schools-2020-English.pdf”]English[/button] [button color=”” url=”https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Parents-Guide-to-Schools-2020-Spanish-Web.pdf”]Spanish[/button]

Watch SD101: Choosing a School

Choosing the right school for your child can be daunting. Where do you start? What’s the difference between a charter school and a magnet school? What data should you consider? In this episode of our explainer series, San Diego 101, we walk you through the basics of school choice and explain what information is available for you to consider.

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Get More Answers

Voice of San Diego and the San Diego Public Library will host information sessions to explore the guide and answer your questions. Admission is free.

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Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at the Rancho Bernardo Library
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at the Otay Mesa Library (Spanish translation available)

Can’t attend? Ask us anything: Email the team at info@voiceofsandiego.org. Or reach out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Dig Through the Data

You can explore the date from the guide here.

Most of the data in the guide comes from the California Department of Education. We included demographic information about each school’s students, like the percent of students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch, which is a commonly used indicator of poverty in education.

Other data comes from the state’s new California Schools Dashboard, which reports information about the level and trend-line of the test results of each school. We’ve taken the step of converting the state’s color codes to special symbols. And we have also indicated which schools offer popular programs like dual-language immersion and the International Baccalaureate program. Check out the most current data in this year’s Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools.

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Don’t Get Caught Without After-School Care
Too many parents start the school year with one major concern: What will the kids do for the two or three hours after school, before the workday is over?
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Decoding School Jargon
These are terms you’re likely to hear navigating the education world of San Diego County.
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What to Consider When Choosing a School
We asked parents, educators and policy experts for their advice on what to look for when choosing a school. Here’s what they had to say.
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The Preschool and Child Care Dilemma
To working-class families, paying for child care and preschool can seem unfathomable.
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Thank You

Voice of San Diego is a member-supported nonprofit news organization. We thank the corporate and community partners, foundations and members who make our work possible.

The guide and data compilation would not have been possible without the partnership of the San Diego Workforce Partnership and the UC San Diego Center for Research and Evaluation. Special thanks to Laura Kohn, director of the Center for Local Income Mobility, and Gladys Selfridge and Georgia Kovacs of UC San Diego Extension.

A special thanks to the following for their sponsorship of this guide:

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